Predicting Weather By The Moon - Xavier University Libraries

The Moon in Ancient History
is usually seen with two ghost hounds that were said to
serve her. Hecate is most often mispercepted as the goddess
of witchcraft or evil, but she did perform some deeds
worthy of credit. One such was when she rescued
Persephone, (Demete’s daughter, the queen of the Underworld
and the maiden of spring), from the Underworld.
Hecate is said to haunt a three-way crossroad, each of her
heads facing in a certain direction. She is said to appear
when the ebony moon shines.
In China, too, the Moon loomed large in mythology.
The earliest Chinese calendar was based on lunar cycles,
with observations of both the Sun and the Moon. The
twenty-eight divisions of the Chinese lunar year were called
Hsiu, “Houses” and each House was inhabited by a warrior-consort
of the Moon goddess. Such a calendar was
also used in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.
The belief is that long ago, the Earth was in a state of
havoc because there were 10 suns in the sky, and these were
the sons of the Jade Emperor. Rivers dried up, the land became
barren, and many people died. Seeing the death and
destruction caused by his sons, the Jade Emperor took this
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